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Zowie Extremesland CS:GO India 2017 LAN finals

Entity gaming defeat Eternal esports to nab the win and secure their spot in the Zowie Extremesland Asia 2017 final in Shanghai, China

We had the opportunity to attend the Zowie Extremesland CS:GO India LAN finals and find out which team would be representing India at the Asia Grand Finale in Shanghai, China. Entity Gaming nabbed the spot with a 2-0 win against Eternal Esports and will go on represent India at the Zowie Extremesland Asia Grand Finals on 16-22 October.

Zowie Extremesland India Qualifiers

A total of 72 teams registered for the Zowie Extremesland India qualifiers and we were down to the final four. The two other teams in the finals bracket along with Entity Gaming and Eternal Esports were tMg (Trademarc Gaming) and Shooting Monkeys, both of which are relatively new teams.
Matches were held in a best of three fashion, which each team needing two games to win. None of the matches in the finals bracket went into round 3, with all teams either winning or losing 2-0.

The qualifiers started off with Eternal facing Entity, a match which would repeat in the finals. Entity beat Eternal 16-8 on mirage in the first round and 16-3 on cobble in the second. In the second match, tMg would eliminate the Shooting Monkeys 2-0, winning 16-13 on overpass, and 16-5 on nuke.

source: SoStronk

The third match had Eternal eliminate tMg from the qualifier, with a close 22-20 win in the first round on train followed with an easy 16-3 on cobble. Just about every first game of the three between each team was close. The second game usually went heavily in favour of the team which won the first game.

Team Entity

The same happened in the final as well, with Entity Gaming beating Eternal Esports in a close 16-13 in the first game, but delivering a crushing 16-2 defeat in the second round giving the win to Entity gaming.

Things aren’t going well for Eternal

The India LAN took place at the LXG Café in Bangalore, where they hosted the event last year as well.

Showcasing two new products

Zowie also had two new products to showcase at the event. The first was the Zowie XL2546 240hz esports monitor with “DyAc” technology, which stands for Dynamic Accuracy. We had the opportunity to try it out and we can definitely say it felt like the ‘cure for cancer’.

The second product was a new optical switch keyboard, the Zowie Celeritas II.

The monitor will be the official monitor for the Grand Finale and the qualifying team will be practising on the same before heading to Shanghai.

About Zowie Extremesland

Extremesland is an annual esports event held by BenQ Zowie specifically for Southeast Asia. As of right now, Extremesland is only a CS:GO tournament but they plan to expand and include more popular esports titles, like Dota 2.

The Zowie Extremesland India qualifiers are held to determine the best team in India to represent the country in the grand finals. India is unique in that it gets its own large-scale qualifiers tournament since it’s a large country. Teams from every part of the country are free to participate to show off their skill and perhaps represent the country in the Asia finals.

On the state of esports in the country

While we were at the event, we had the opportunity to speak with Rajeev Singh, Managing Director, BenQ India, about the state of esports in the country. According to him, it’s still a growing industry, but it’s growing incredibly fast. Zowie’s goal is to create a stable esports ecosystem in the country first, which it is terribly lacking in at the moment. As such, they’re trying to associate with as many events as possible to contribute to the ecosystem.

Entity celebrating their win

On being asked about sponsoring an Indian esports team, he replied that they had tried to take that approach before, but Indian teams aren’t stable, they’re constantly changing. Within the span of a few months, you’ll find that rosters may have completely changed. Just as an example, the team that represented India in the Extremesland grand finals last year, Invictus, disbanded after the event. But four of the five members played this year’s qualifiers as part of different teams. As a result, they’d rather focus on the ecosystem first, and then the teams, as a stable ecosystem might stabilise teams as a result. We’d received a similar response from various other people in the esports industry in a prior article. Either way, we’re taking steps in the right direction.

SKOAR! is India's Premier Gaming Website. SKOAR! began its journey as a bi-monthly publication in 2003 and has since kept growing. Through this journey, it has evolved from a purely print magazine to an interactive magazine and now, has made its foray into the digital space. BTW, why on earth are you reading this part? Ran out of articles to read? Weren't we entertaining enough? Maybe you're just bored, so you might as well go pester the editor or troll someone in the comments ;-)